KI TETZEI 5776
BIRTH BLESSINGS – BAGGAGE

September 15, 2016
13 Elul 5776

Primogeniture: an exclusive right of inheritance belonging to the eldest son (Merriam Webster Dictionary).

The Torah vests special privileges on the first born son. He receives a double portion of his father's estate and is the one to ultimately succeed his father as the head of the family. Primogeniture was a given, and a father could not revoke this status with its obvious benefits.

In the days when polygamy was practiced and permitted, the Torah ruled that should a man's first born be the child of a less a favored wife, a father could not transfer the rights of primogeniture to the son of a favored wife (Deuteronomy 21: 15-17). A first born son was Biblically endowed with this special and irrevocable blessing. Son number one" thus benefitted from the accident of birth.

Yet each of us comes into this world with blessings and baggage that are accidents of birth. Our genetic makeup is unchangeable. Our height, the color of our eyes, our skin pigmentation is what it is, as is a susceptibility to various medical conditions.

As human beings, we are not only shaped by these natural forces; nurture also plays a role. We are born into a family and into a community. The child of a middle class family begins life with blessings that are not bestowed upon a son or daughter born to a single mother who resides in a compromised socio-economic environment. In this sense life is not always fair

Thus our parents, the source of our genetic makeup, and our environment, with its impact upon the very quality of our lives form both the baggage and the blessing that accompany our birth. Yet our tradition teaches that we are also endowed with a formidable blessing by the third partner in every birth – God.

The account in Genesis describes God as the sole force in the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings. It is they who are commanded and blessed to be "fruitful and multiply." Henceforth conception would only occur when a male sperm successfully fertilized an egg lodged in a female body.  Our tradition, however, perceives God as a silent participant in the very miracle of conception and birth. From God flows the blessings of intellect, imagination and the power of speech. Taken together these make us "but a little lower than the angels." The Divine gift of moral choice, however, is granted only to mortals and denied to heavenly beings.

Yes, there is much about our lives that are fixed and unchangeable, but we are not without the power to impact upon our condition, our status, and our limitations. There are individuals, who despite being born into a disadvantaged family or community, successfully manage to transcend their humble beginnings. There are men and women who because of their genetic makeup cause them to be susceptible to diabetes or heart disease, but the determination to exercise and to maintain a proper diet minimize the possibility of succumbing to the disease.

Being endowed with the ability to make a distinction between right and wrong is a precious blessing.  During these days prior to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we are urged to evaluate the character of our lives and to exercise this Divine gift of moral choice. Teshuva (repemtence) is only possible when we are willing and able to admit to ourselves that we have acted improperly, demonstrated insensitivity and despaired of our ability to fulfill our human potential.

Being endowed by God with the capacity to admit wrong doing and to say "I'm sorry," is truly a heaven sent blessing. May we never lose our sense of awe of being so blessed.

From the holy city of Jerusalem Rae joins me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach– a Shabbat of peace and blessing.

Rabbi Arnold Goodman


SHOFETIM 5776
BLEMISHED SACRIFICES, BLEMISHED SCIENCE, BLEMISHED PRAYERS

September 8, 2016
5 Elul 5776

You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect of a serious kind for that is an abomination to the Lord your God. [Deuteronomy 17:1]

The Torah is clear: only unblemished animals may be sacrificed on the altar. "Gifts" to God are to be free of defects. The Talmud, in great detail, defines the type of the blemishes that fail to meet Divine expectations. Now that prayer has replaced the sacrificial cult, the entire discussion of blemished animals is seemingly irrelevant, but then there are moral blemishes.

Georgetown University, founded in 1789, is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. Recently it was discovered that in 1838 it sold 272 of its slaves to raise $110,00 needed to save the University. While slavery in any form is an evil, the conditions for the University slaves were far better than these enslaved men and women had to endure on Southern plantations.

The revelation that the University used such blatant morally blemished funds to further its mission of higher education is a major news story. Georgetown has been forced to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that acquiring and using this money compromised the mission of this religiously founded institution.

Georgetown has acknowledged its "guilt" and is struggling to develop an appropriate reparations plan, but there is no way that it can remove the stain of acquiring and using such blemished resources. Georgetown, however, was not unique in building its facilities with slave labor. It was the common practice during those days, but then as now, any acquiesce to slavery was – and is – a moral blemish.

Since the end of WWII the medical/ scientific community has debated whether it is appropriate to build on the blemished data prepared by Nazi doctors and scientists. They suffered no pangs of conscience in using human subjects for their experiments to study the effects of hyperthermia, a artificial insemination, fertility, and other areas of concern. The men and women selected as "guinea pigs" were not volunteers but concentration camp inmates who were forcibly subjected to inhumanly cruel conditions. The descriptions of their torture, and often of their deaths are embedded in the "data" that survived the war. Thus there is no question that flagrant moral blemishes are at the root of this scientific data.

The moral conundrum is the contention that this " data" could help us more effectively treat hyperthermia or advance our knowledge in other areas. The consensus, however, has been to reject the morally blemished findings of Nazi doctors and scientists. People of good conscience have been clear in their insistence that we may not bring such morally compromised  data  into our labs and hence into our lives.

Moral blemishes, however, are an existential human reality. Every sin, every ethical shortcoming, is a moral blemish that accompanies us when we stand before God. Our tradition's obvious antidote to such spiritual failure is teshuva or repentance.

We are now in the month of Elul that serves as a prelude and preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These are the days when we are challanged to begin the soul searching that can help us come to terms with our moral blemishes. May each of us, in his or her own way, be equal to this formidable spiritual task.

From the holy city of Jerusalem Rae joins me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach– a Shabbat of peace and blessing.

Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman